letsrecycle.com

Cardiff council assesses switching to kerbside sort

By Caelia Quinault

Cardiff council is researching the financial impacts and perceived benefits of dropping its current commingled recycling collection service in favour of kerbside sort amid fears of a potential legal challenge.

However, the council is also asking the Welsh Government to give councils flexibility in the way they operate their services.

Cardiff currently collects dry recyclables commingled in a green back (right) every week alongside weekly food waste collections (left)
Cardiff currently collects dry recyclables commingled in a green back (right) every week alongside weekly food waste collections (left)

The Welsh local authority told letsrecycle.com today (August 17) that it is assessing the implications of moving to a kerbside sort system whereby recycling would be collected in four different containers, as opposed to the current system, where they are collected in one bag.

The move comes after local authorities in Wales expressed concern that they could be open to legal challenges for operating commingled collections following the transposition of the EU revised Waste Framework Directive into law in England and Wales (see letsrecycle.com story). The Directive requires councils to introduce separate collections of paper, glass, plastics and metals by 2015 if technically, environmentally and economically practicable.

Kerbside sort is also the recycling collection method preferred by the Welsh Government.
However, Cardiff stressed that no decisions have been made on a potential switch and that any move it makes will be dependent on residents.

A spokesman for the council, which changed from Liberal Democrat to Labour control in May, said: We intend to fully analyse in depth the financial impacts and perceived benefits before proposing changes to our residents. There is a long way to go before we will be in position to make any decisions and they will not be rash they will be fully informed and with the residents at the heart of decision making alongside what is best for Cardiff.

The council added that it did not consider it practical to introduce any change immediately or even necessarily by 2015.

Service

Cardiff is researching the possibility of dropping its commingled collection service
Cardiff is researching the possibility of dropping its commingled collection service

In Cardiff the council currently provides green bags for a weekly commingled collection of dry recyclables including cans, aerosols, mixed rigid plastics, plastic bottles, glass, paper and card. Food waste is also collected weekly in caddies. Residual waste is collected fortnightly in black wheeled bins on alterate weeks to green waste in green wheeled bins.
Mixed dry recyclables are sent to the councils materials recycling facility (MRF) at Lamby Way for sorting, before being sold to reprocessors.

The council is not the only local authority in Wales to collect waste commingled. According to the Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA), around half of local authorities in Wales operate some form of commingled collection service at present.

The Association is closely following the commingled issue because the Welsh Government and Defra are currently in a difficult position because their interpretation of the Directive is the subject of a Judicial Review.

The spokesman for the Authority explained that the council was pushing hard for the Welsh Government to give councils flexibility in how they operate their waste services and pointed to European Commission guidance which states that commingled collections are permitted under the EU Directive.

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Cardiff council

He said: We are working with Welsh Government to properly consider the impacts of how they choose to adopt the Directive, which we acknowledge has to be a legally sound process. We are strongly urging Welsh Government not to adopt a hard line, to enable a practical level of flexibility for local choice to remain. We are urging them to ensure common sense is embedded as we have serious concerns as to the potential impacts to performance, cost and deliverability which we are discussing with them and WLGA colleagues.

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